


I Found You

by carvedwhalebones (fuckyeahlucifersupernatural)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Worship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 01:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7487940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckyeahlucifersupernatural/pseuds/carvedwhalebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There may not be anything left of Reyes after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Found You

**Author's Note:**

> **Tumblr URL:** carvedwhalebones.tumblr.com
> 
>  _This is a gift for[fowo](fowo.tumblr.com)_!

_**“What did you do?!”**_

If he listens closely, he can catch the tell-tale signs of Gabriel Reyes through the rough scratch and hiss of the dark matter churning on the floor. He never quite prepared himself to see the man, let alone hear him, his pulse already hammering a furious beat in his ears. Despite the instinctual need to call him by name, he remains quiet. Jack’s trying to find other signs that this is his old comrade, but it’s hard when he’s witnessing this inhuman transformation.

A hand and arm is busy forming from the pile of matter, long, blackened fingers groping at the floor near it, pulling itself out of the deconstructed mess it has become. It shrinks back into itself when a lance of electricity skitters across the ground. The hand reemerges with a bit more vigor, once the electricity has disappeared. 

“Winston made this,” Jack begins to explain the device he triggered, earning a quick snarl from the depths of flittering nanobots and flesh, “said it was inspired after an encounter with you.” 

“Fuckin’ monkey. Well, what are you waiting for, then? Gonna shoot me, soldier, or are you going to stare?” 

Jack can hear the squelch and wet slide of organs and muscles reformulating themselves, tasting the copper of this transformation despite the distance between them. He expects to see the image of the Reaper forming or some semblance of Gabriel through this reassembly, but it never comes to pass. The black matter is making him taller, rising above Jack by a foot, legs thinning themselves out to fill out a coming-to-be torso. A leg becomes too thin around what Jack is making out as a knee, snapping at the weight pressing down upon it, sending the dark shape stumbling forward. 

Jack doesn’t move. He stands his ground, resisting the urge to pull his firearm up and take a step back.

“Go ahead, Captain America, save the day. Shoot the monster of the week,” the disembodied voice taunts and it catches on the rise of teeth, sharp and bleached white. Gabriel is pushing himself back onto his feet with long legs and arms, letting fingers turn sharp. Gabriel, tauntingly, stretches out of his arms out wide, “I’m _wiiiiide_ open, Morrison. First shot is on the house.” 

When Gabriel’s skin begins to settle, he’s wearing a head full of teeth and emerging eyes in a sea of black.They cluster above the row of teeth, staring down at him with a sickly, red glow. Every alarm bell in his being is ringing at him is to create distance and fire, a satisfied snarl leaving the depths of Gabriel when Jack’s rifle moves to chest level. His visor is already pointing out weak spots and he sees it then. He sees the way Gabriel’s limbs are shaking from exertion in just keeping him upright. Even the outstretched arms are falling a bit lower, unable to keep themselves suspended up in the air. He wonders how much effort is being used in this last ditch effort to…what? Intimidate him? Scare him? Prove that he deserves a bullet? 

Jack sighs softly and lowers his firearm.

“You know it’s me,” Jack points out, earning a disgruntled sound from Gabriel, dropping his arms to his side. 

“Who else would wear a high school letterman jacket as a bulletproof vest?” comes the dry remark. Gabriel shifts, body rippling, before he lets his weight distribute onto one side. “Why are you here, Morrison?” he snaps.

“I wanted to see if it was really you for myself,” Jack admits and Gabriel is quick to howl at that. His impossibly tall frame bends over, clutching at his side as a wheezing, scratchy sound resembling laughter leaves him. Gabriel nearly sinks onto his knees at his own movements, forced to spread his legs a bit wider to support his weight as teeth click upon each other with each heave of noise. 

The laughter gradually turns broken and wounded, fading into something resigned. 

It’s getting harder to look at Gabriel like this, let alone listen to him.   “Look at me,” Gabriel hisses, teeth barred. He’s trying to make himself taller, once more, but his shoulders won’t quite roll back. Gabriel gives a low, bitter bark of laughter, “Let me know if you find him in there.”

Gabriel has become less man and more wounded animal, Jack reflects quietly. He can’t say he remembers witnessing a side of Gabriel like this. He remembers the man’s memorable sense of composure, even when the odds were stacked up against them and there is too much blood to determine friend from foe. Seeing this bothers him more than the endless decay and rearrangement his body is forced to engage in. There may not be anything left of Reyes after all. 

“Can you…change shape? Or is that — ”  

Gabriel manages to, finally, pull his shoulders back, leaning forward to snap his jaws at him, “Is this unsettling for you, Jack!?” They both can taste the hurt dripping from his mouth.   

Jack removes a hand from his rifle to hold it up in a show of surrender, feeling his voice rise, “That’s not what I meant — _dammit_ , can you or can you not change shape?”

Gabriel bristles, working his jaw in thought, eyes observing him carefully. 

“Yes,” he admits surlily.

Jack gives a few nods before he crouches down to carefully lay his rifle on the floor next to his feet. Gabriel shifts closer, uncomfortable and appalled by the gesture.

“That won’t get you far, boy scout,” he warns lowly. 

Jack moves his fingers to his visor, groping at the sides before he’s gently pushing the front out of its slot. He lays it down with his rifle.  

“Stupid, Morrison. Very stupid,” the figure before him hisses. 

The gloves come next, tugging them off and dropping them on top of the pile. Gabriel is hunkering forward, long arms and hands grazing the floor underneath him, appearing as if he’s getting ready to charge at the, now, vulnerable soldier. Jack shows his hands, palms up, before he takes a step forward. Gabriel responds by dropping his jaw, exposing, further, the teeth jutting out cruelly from his mouth. 

“I’m going to touch you now, okay?” Jack informs, forcing himself to slowly move closer to Gabriel. 

He’s waiting for teeth to latch onto one of his hands as he carefully raises them up. It never comes, but the older male is suddenly attempting to hoist himself back to full, standing height, again, this overused tactic of making himself appear larger. Jack gives an exasperated sigh and coaxes his own hands to reach upward and settle on Gabriel’s shoulders. He’s surprised when they feel solid underneath his hands.   “If I remember correctly, we were about the same height,” Jack begins and gently presses down onto Gabriel’s shoulder, a relieved sound softly leaving him when he feels them giving in after a moment. Gabriel begins to shrink under Jack’s hands until they are eye-level with the other. 

“And,” he continues with rising confidence, “I remember the cut of your jaw.” His fingers rise up to the nondescript jaw, feeling the fabric of Gabriel loosen and become moldable. He’s tracing what he remembers of the man’s strong jaw and the scattered little scars here and there, letting the tip of his finger draw out those. “Then cheeks…” he trails off as he lets his fingers raise upward, swallowing down the perturbed disgust when his fingers threaten to drag themselves into one of the many eyes. He refuses to let his hands hesitate, watching the eyes close before fingers can reach them, becoming flesh and bone underneath. 

“Look at me,” Gabriel tiredly murmurs out. 

“I’m looking at you,” Jack assures, letting his fingers drift to his mouth, skating over thick and jagged teeth. “I remember your mouth. Your lips…” he continues, wincing sympathetically at the sickening sound of teeth and mouth trying to form the picture Jack is painting. He drags a thumb across the familiar picture of Gabe’s bottom lip. It feels real. 

He quietly points out the little nuances and hidden scars he remembers on Gabriel’s body with each stroke of his thumb. He’s only laying out the initial changes, Gabriel is the one who is stepping in to polish each alteration until it becomes the original, the older man completing each change. Jack can feel the blood pound loudly in his ears as he helps form a nose, brows, eyes, and ears. It looks every bit like Gabriel and he wonders if his expression is giving his relief away, beginning to feel the older male restlessly shift underneath his touch. 

“I found you,” he announces quietly, a hand leaving the thick curls of Gabriel’s head to find their familiar spot on one of Gabe’s cheeks. His cheek feels warm underneath him and there is an overwhelming sensation of relief and pride at the image before him. Even though the man’s features still hold a deathly pallor over them and his eyes carry on a crimson sheen, he sees Gabriel Reyes. 

Gabriel leans into the hand against his cheek, sighing softly. “You know,” the older man begins and Jack can feel his lips twitching into a smile. It sounds like him. There is no strange warp to his voice or rough scratch behind each word. It sounds just like Reyes. “I am, at least, an inch taller than you,” he comments, coaxing a relieved chuckle from Jack. 

The older male moves a hand to curl around Jack’s wrist and the spell is broken when they both stare at the blackened fingers far too sharp to be human, dripping black matter over Jack’s jacket sleeve. Jack forgot Gabe’s hands, too focused on the man’s face. 

Gabriel looks like someone abruptly hit him in the face, eyes wide in surprise. There is a snarl ripping from Gabriel’s throat, quickly pulling away from Jack and his hand. Jack opens his mouth to assure the man that it’s okay, but the words die on his tongue when he sees the older man undo himself. Whatever familiar physical features of Gabriel twists back, pulling himself back into the Reaper attire.

“Stupid, Morrison. Very stupid,” he repeats. 

Jack watches him leave in a smoke of matter, hastily pushing itself through the crevices of the building. He knows he should say something — to call out to the man, but he can't think of anything, watching Gabriel disappear in silence. 

He stays put, waiting for a moment, before he’s slowly bending down to collect his equipment, “Yeah, that was pretty stupid.”

**Author's Note:**

> _Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!_


End file.
